How People Change
Tim Lane and Paul Tripp have written a wonderful book titled “How People Change.” To understand one’s life, one needs to understand how he/she fits into the bigger picture of God’s story. The authors have come up with a primary metaphor in their book that they have learned from scripture and have broken it down into four parts to help people understand what God is doing in their life. “Once you begin to recognize these elements as they occur in Scripture and let them interpret your life, they will enrich your understanding of what the Bible teaches about God, about you, and about life” (82). The main points are summarized as “what life in this fallen world is like, who we are as fallen human beings, who he is as Savior and Lord of all things, and how he progressively transforms us by his grace” (82). The first element that the authors discuss is called Heat. “This is the person’s situation in daily life, with difficulties, blessings, and temptations” (83). We live in a broken sinful world where we are faced with pain, suffering and even blessings that can bring great sorrow and anguish to our lives. However, the good news of the gospel is that we don’t have to pretend that everything is fine but we can go to God in the midst of our pain and cry to him for hope. “Honest expressions of fear, pain and doubt were welcome in the place of worship, atonement and forgiveness. The mess of human misery was welcomed into the place of mysterious, glorious grace” (100). Along with anguish over brokenness, we also react to the circumstances around us. Heat means we will have difficulties and trials in this life and based upon those trials we will react in a certain way. It’s a trial that happens outside of us and shows what one’s heart is really like. “If we respond sinfully to the trials he sends, it is not because we have been forced to sin, but because our hearts have chosen to do so” (102). As sinful people, we want to blame our circumstances for why we react sinfully or we want to blame another person for one’s sin. If the other person would just change their behavior than everything would be better and there would be no need to get angry at them, but that is ignoring the truth that the behavior of the other person is just bringing out the sin that is already in one’s own heart. “Trials do not cause us to be what we have not been; rather, they reveal what we have been all along. The harvest the trial produces is the result of the roots already in our hearts” (102).
Following Heat, the authors go on to explain the outcome which is Thorns. “The thorn bush represents the fact that, as sinners, we tend to respond sinfully to circumstances of life” (117). That as broken fallen people, because of our unchanged, depraved hearts we are often unable to respond in a way that glorifies God. “Our responses are not shaped by the situation but by the thoughts and desires our hearts bring to those situations” (124). If we keep blaming others for our circumstances and sins than our hearts will never be changed. It’s not the people who cause us to sin but our own sinful hearts and desires. The authors go on to explain that the reason we respond sinfully to those around us is that we have replaced our worship of God with the worship of ourselves or something else in this world, such as comfort, sex, community etc. “Your Thorny, sinful responses to life grow out of a heart that has defected to worship something else” (136). In Romans 1:25 the Bible explains the truth of this in more detail, “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!” We were made to worship and fellowship with God but because of our sinfulness we have chosen to worship idols and because of the heat of our broken world often those idols are threatened and we react sinfully from our hearts. “When we see our Thorns, they help us detect our idols, our specific God-replacements, and our ruling desires. We see where our hearts need transformation, and we are led to hunger and thirst for grace” (141). Which brings us to our third metaphor, the Cross. Thankfully, through Christ once where there was idolatry and sin there is now the grace of God to change our hearts. “Our hearts, once under the domination of sin, are now the dwelling place of Christ, the ultimate source of righteousness, wisdom, grace, power, and love” (151). Through the Cross we no longer live for our selfish passions and desires, God’s grace frees us from trying to satisfy our pride and humbles us because we have realized the depths of our sin and how merciful God is to free us from our rebellious ways. Not only that but the Cross completely changes who we are, gives us new hearts and empowers us to fight sin. “You are not the same as you once were. You have been forever changed. You no longer live under the weight of the law or the domination of sin” (150).
The last metaphor is Fruit, which is what a believer should be bearing once the Cross of Christ has fully changed their lives. “Jesus also sends the Holy Spirit, who comes to give the believer a new heart, to write the law on that heart, and to give a new power and desire to obey God’s commands” (176). This truth is further explained in God’s Word in Ezekiel 36: 25-27:
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness’s, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
This should encourage any believer that to change one’s own heart does not depend upon them but that God promises that He and He alone will give them a new heart and new desires to walk in His ways. “The Word of God shocks us with its hope, as it presents us with possibilities far beyond anything we would expect this side of eternity” (183). Perhaps this is where many believers fail in their Christian lives, by actually believing the Word of God will do what it says it will do in their lives. “Sometimes we doubt that the grace of Christ is really powerful enough to produce good Fruit in us in such a troubled and troubling world” (183). A believer should rejoice instead and have hope that God will do great things through them by His Spirit.
